Wednesday, September 17, 2008

What I've Learned About Fraud

Well, this has been an enlightening day. Sweetie and I spent the morning at the credit union and the police station making reports. There is a chance we'll see at least some of the money back, but there is also a chance we won't. Because it was a VISA/Debit card, it isn't insured like a regular VISA is. Still no idea how the number got stolen, although I did have to use it to buy an e-book for my Stats class. It was with a big publisher, but I had never used them before. We'll probably never know.

So, here are a few valuable lessons learned:

1. Never use your VISA/Debit for online purchases. Or bad things might happen.
2. If you must buy online (and sometimes we must!), use a separate VISA/MC that isn't connected in any way to your banking accounts.
3. Pay cash whenever you can for groceries, etc., to limit the times your number is exposed to the world.
4. Monitor your checking account often--daily, if possible.

It could have been so much worse. It could have been at the beginning of the month when our house payment and other bills hadn't cleared yet.

I still feel trigger-happy, though.

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